Nice simple, metal unibody design - it looks identical to almost every other Redmi phone that has launched in the past year, and the metal unibody design has been done to death, but it makes sense for this segment where durability is more important than a stunning glass design - overall the phone is built robustly and will take a few scratches and bumps

Pretty compact too, which aids one-handed use

The new modern tall 'notch' display introduces the notch to the entry-level segment, and has a good resolution

MIUI is one of the better Android UIs, and comes packed with features, and customizability options

Pretty decent day-to-day performance backed by the reliable (though now aging) Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 - the SoC is known for its power efficiency which is ideal for a budget device - of course if you want to do heavy gaming, you should probably look at something better

Decent rear dual cameras - in daytime, the photos come out fairly sharp and crisp, and bokehs are pretty good too

Selfies come out fairly rich and vibrant too, as long as the lighting is good

Overall, the cameras are somewhere in the middle of Xiaomi's last generation series - they are significantly better than Redmi 5, slightly better than Redmi Note 5, but a level behind the Redmi Note 5 Pro

Very good audio quality, excellent speaker loudness and output

Good battery life with a solid 4000mAh battery that will comfortably last over a day

Decent charging speed (though it does not support fast charging) - you will be able to top up the battery from 0 to 100% in about 2 hours, 10 minutes

Overall, the the Redmi 6 Pro comes off as a reliable and functional compact phone in this price bracket - having said that, it will face some stiff competition from the likes of the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 (which runs on the Snapdragon 636 and has stock Android interface) apart from it's own siblings like the Redmi Note 5 Pro (which again runs on the Snapdragon 636, and has a significantly better camera)

Nice, utilitarian (though not exceptional) design and good build quality, as has been the case with the entire Redmi Note series

In spite of the large screen, the phone remains quite ergonomic because of the tall, minimal-bezel form factor

MIUI interface over Android is snappy, and offers some added features such as dual apps and second space - with dual apps, one can run separate accounts of the same service/app and the second space functionality provides separate user experiences for example for work and home

Stellar performance - the single most defining aspect for the Note 5 Pro may be the excellent new chip that powers it - the Snapdragon 636 - in short, in terms of both benchmarks, and real life use, it blows every other phone in the price bracket out of the water - be it the loading times for heavy games, opening multiple apps or just switching between multiple heavy apps and games - the phone simply sails through everything

The heat management is excellent too - the phone hardly gets warm even after playing games on the phone for an hour straight

Very good set of dual cameras at the rear - you have a 12MP primary camera (Sony IMX486) with a sensor size of 1.25um and an aperture of f/2.2 - the secondary 5MP camera is used for depth sensing only and has a sensor size of 1.12um with f/2.0 aperture - in ample lighting conditions, the camera captures a good amount of details and has a punchy colour reproduction - low light image capabilities are equally good and the camera has good dynamic range - even the portrait (bokeh) images look better than most of its competitors - they carry plenty of details and the background blur is also quite good

Overall, this is the arguably the best camera phone in this price bracket now, having a slight edge over the existing top camera phones in the bracket, like the Xiaomi Mi A1

Very good front camera too - takes good images in all kinds of lighting conditions - you also get software based portrait image, which lets you take that ‘Bokeh’ image with background blur and is decent

Good audio quality through both headphones, and the speaker

Good call quality

Stellar battery life - still runs for two days straight, continuing the tradition of the Redmi Note series

On the whole, Redmi Note 5 Pro offers everything you need from this price bracket - superior performance, excellent battery life and a good camera - simply put, this is almost a complete package when it comes to mid-range smartphone

2-minute Review [Negatives]

Although this is a tall, 'notch' display, the bezels (specially the chin) are more significant than some other tall displays out there

While the Snapdragon 625 is perfectly good for daily use, you do have the option of Snapdragon 636 devices in this price bracket, like the Asus Max M1 Pro

The design is simple and works, but is largely a continuation of the old Redmi Note design - it's not a gorgeous, stand out device by by any means

While MIUI is one of the nicer Android UIs, it does have some bloat in terms of unneeded apps - and a lot of people still prefer a more stock Android approach

While the cameras are excellent in still photography, they are only average as far as video recording goes

Still continues with the old micro USB standard, there is no modern USB Type-C support

Expert Reviews

There's nothing wrong with it...but it doesn’t really offer anything new or different compared to the existing Redmi Note 5